slrnface(1)

slrnface(1) General Commands Manual slrnface(1)
NAME
slrnface - show X-Faces in X11 terminal emulator
SYNOPSIS
slrnface [ -xOffsetChar x_char_offset ] [ -yOffsetChar y_char_offset ]
[ -xOffsetPix x_pixel_offset ] [ -yOffsetPix y_pixel_offset ] [
-XFacePad left_padding ] [ -ink fg_color ] [ -paper bg_color ] [ -pad-
Color pad_color ]
DESCRIPTION
The slrnface helper utility can be used from slrn(1), mutt(1) or simi-
lar programs to show X-Faces in Usenet articles or mail messages when
those programs are run in an X11 terminal emulator. This utility is not
intended to be run directly from the command line. Instead, the master
programs should be configured to invoke slrnface when appropriate.
Different terminal emulators have different screen layouts. Some might
have scroolbars (on either side), a menubar or something else. Terminal
window which slrnface uses might contain some of these "decorations,"
but it is impossible to determine if that is the case at run time.
Therefore it is impossible to determine the exact location at which the
X11 window with the X-Face image should be placed. Default hardcoded
values are appropriate for several terminal emulators, but not for all
of them. The placement can be controlled by command line arguments, but
it is suggested to use X resources for this task.
While slrnface is running and showing X-Face, the left mouse button can
be used to move the window.
RESOURCES
The slrnface helper is controlled by the resources set for the terminal
emulator in which it runs, not for the slrnface class or instance. That
is because correct execution entirely depends on the master program and
the geometry of the terminal emulator in use and has little to do with
slrnface itself. All resources have a command line parameter equiva-
lent.
However, a lot of popular terminal emulators have a certain amount of
hardcoded brain damage and setting X resources will not have any effect
with them. This usually happens because of illegal characters in the
WM_CLASS property. In those cases command line arguments are the only
remaining option.
Resource Command line parameter Default value
--------------------------------------------------------------
slrnface.xOffsetChar -xOffsetChar 0
slrnface.yOffsetChar -yOffsetChar 1
slrnface.xOffsetPix -xOffsetPix 0
slrnface.yOffsetPix -yOffsetPix 2
slrnface.XFacePad -XFacePad 0
slrnface.ink -ink black
slrnface.paper -paper white
slrnface.padColor -padColor black
xOffsetChar
The horizontal offset for the X-Face window from the terminal's upper
right corner expressed in character units.
yOffsetChar
The vertical offset for the X-Face window from the terminal's upper
right corner expressed in character units. The exact value in pixels
will be calculated at run time, as well as the pixel equivalent for
xOffestChar. There are some lousily coded terminals which are not very
helpful with this, so the calculation might not be perfect.
xOffsetPix
The horizontal offset for the X-Face window from the terminal's upper
right corner expressed in pixels.
yOffsetPix
The vertical offset for the X-Face window from the terminal's upper
right corner expressed in pixels. This value is added to the character
offset provided by the yOffsetChar resource and the resulting sum is
substracted from the vertical coordinate of the terminal's upper right
corner. The equivalent calculation for the horizontal coordinate is
done with the xOffsetChar and xOffsetPix resources. In both cases,
pixel value resources are provided for finer control.
XFacePad
This value tells slrnface how many pixels should be cleared on the left
side of the X-Face image. In the case of long subject lines the image
may be displayed over characters and having some spacing between them
would be beneficial.
ink
This is the foreground color for the X-Face image. The more common name
for this resource is foreground. However, that name is not used
because there is a high probability that it would be inherited from the
terminal's resources. A lot of users use light foreground and dark
background for terminals. Since X-Faces should normally be viewed with
dark foreground on light background, inheriting the colors from the
terminal setup would present a negative image by default. In order to
avoid that, slrnface uses different resource name.
paper
This is the background color for the X-Face image.
padColor
This is the color for the padding region set with XFacePad resource.
EXAMPLES
The following example demonstrates how to set resources for xterm.
Example 1: horizontal offsets for xterm
Since slrnface looks at the resources defined for the terminal's class
and name, an example setting is:
xterm.slrnface.xOffsetChar: 1
xterm.slrnface.xOffsetPix: 2
It is better to use the application name, rather than class, because
some other terminals use XTerm as their class, since they try to be
feature compatible. However, they might not have the same screen lay-
out, so resources set for the terminal class might not yield the
desired effect in all terminals.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
DISPLAY The name of the display where the terminal runs. This
environment variable is the only way to pass it to slrn-
face.
WINDOWID Used for determining terminal's X window id. It must be
set by a terminal emulator.
LANG, LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES
These environment variables will be used when determin-
ing the location of the appropriate resource file.
EXIT STATUS
The slrnface helper doesn't print any diagnostic, because it doesn't
know if that is the appropriate action. In cases when diagnostic output
is appropriate, it can't guarantee that the output would be visible to
the user. Therefore it returns distinct error status for every kind of
problem and relies on the parent process to take the appropriate
action.
It should be noted that slrnface forks early in its execution. The par-
ent process exits immediately, returning success status to its parent.
The child process continues execution, reading commands from the FIFO
in the $HOME/.slrnfaces directory and executing them as appropriate. In
the case where there is a problem with the process' startup, the fork
doesn't happen and slrnface exits immediately, returning the appropri-
ate error status. The following exit values are returned:
0 Successful completion.
1 slrnface couldn't connect to the display.
2 Terminal emulator didn't set the WINDOWID environment variable or
its value was invalid.
3 slrnface couldn't find its controlling terminal.
4 Terminal's width or height are not set.
5 There was a problem with the FIFO setup.
6 fork(2) failed.
FILES
$HOME/.slrnfaces/* A named pipe used for communication between slrn-
face and the master proces.
slrnface.sl An example S-Lang hooks for setting up slrnface
with slrn(1).
SEE ALSO
slrn(1), mutt(1), X11(5), xprop(1), xterm(1), fork(2)
BUGS
Multiple X-Faces are not supported.
AUTHOR
Drazen Kacar <dave@willfork.com>
Home page: http://dave.willfork.com/slrnface/
28 Feb 2002 slrnface(1)